Odyssey 5.358 · Book 5, lines 358–360
'I saw the land far off — I'll wait'
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ἀλλὰ μάλʼ οὔ πω πείσομʼ, ἐπεὶ ἑκὰς ὀφθαλμοῖσιν γαῖαν ἐγὼν ἰδόμην, ὅθι μοι φάτο φύξιμον εἶναι. ἀλλὰ μάλʼ ὧδʼ ἔρξω, δοκέει δέ μοι εἶναι ἄριστον·
But by no means yet will I obey, since with my eyes I saw the land far off, where she said my refuge would be. But I will do just this — it seems to me the best course:
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus resolves his own doubt. He will not obey the goddess just yet: with his own eyes he glimpsed the land she names, but it was far away. He decides to stay on the raft while it holds and swim only when he must — reasoning his way to a middle course.
A note on this passage
Doubt turns into method. He will not do what the goddess said — not yet — and he gives his reason: he saw the coast himself, and it was far. Rather than obey or refuse outright, he settles on his own timing, and the last line pivots to a decision he is about to state. The self-address ends where every good plan of his ends: with 'this seems best.'
The undercurrent is the substitution of his own eyes for the god's word. A goddess promised him the land; he trusts instead what he saw for himself, ἑκάς, 'far off.' It is the same instinct that keeps him alive all through the poem — verify, then act — and here it produces not defiance but delay: he will ride the raft as long as its timbers hold, and trust his arms only when he has no choice.
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